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Food Banks: Big Society or Shunting Yards? Successful Failures

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Book cover Food Poverty and Insecurity: International Food Inequalities

Part of the book series: Food Policy ((FP))

Abstract

Food banks have become embedded in societies across the developed world. Irrespective of the economic climate food banks, once established, they appear to persist indefinitely. In the face of global economic austerity the numbers using food banks are spiraling. These predictions have proved accurate in the UK where there are now close to 1000 food banks in every corner of the country, with more opening each week. The focus on the reasons for the growth in the number of food banks in neo-liberal economies of the global north, drawing on examples from the US, Canada, Australia and Europe. This chapter will address the following:

  1. 1.

    The evidence for the effectiveness of food banks

  2. 2.

    Why food banks have flourished in times of austerity

  3. 3.

    The concept of food banks as ‘successful failures’

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Planning and Geography, Cardiff University, 6 Pwllmelin Lane, Cardiff, CF5 2NQ, UK

    Daniel Ronson & Martin Caraher

Authors
  1. Daniel Ronson
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  2. Martin Caraher
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Correspondence to Daniel Ronson .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Northhampton Square CM516 City University, London EC1V OHB, United Kingdom

    Martin Caraher

  2. Flinders University, Adelaide, Australia

    John Coveney

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Ronson, D., Caraher, M. (2016). Food Banks: Big Society or Shunting Yards? Successful Failures. In: Caraher, M., Coveney, J. (eds) Food Poverty and Insecurity: International Food Inequalities. Food Policy. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-23859-3_8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-23859-3_8

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  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-23859-3

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